There used to be some good information on a website somewhere on identifying fake Loetz for the novice, but it appears to have disappeared. In particular, I seem to recall that many of these fakes have the chine effect (excuse the spelling: the French acute is beyond my ken).

Can anyone expand on this?

Kind regards,Cathy

Mod: This vase is a Wilhem Kralik iridescent vase with an applied rim and trails. See the Great Glass site, navigate to the picture gallery, then choose the third page, Austro-Bohemian & German (others), and scroll to Kralik, for similar vases.

I don't recall ever seeing any fake Loetz, i.e. pieces made intentionally to deceive. There is, however, a lot of irridescent glass, old and new,which is often passed off as being Loetz by unscrupulous sellers, who might even add a fake Loetz signiature to a piece by an unknown maker.

To my knowledge, the vast majority of Loetz's output was unsigned. In fact, i would be more wary of a signed piece for the reasons described above.

If there are any modern fakes around, they should be fairly easy to identify: I would expect differences in the irridescence and of course the base would show no wear or the obvious marks left by sandpaper or other abrasive in the attempt to add age to a new piece.

My advice would be to examine the piece thouroughly and compare its style and decoration to the pieces identified on the Loetz site, in particular the threaded Kralik & Pallme-Koenig examples. Attribution of this type of glass is very difficult, however and it is common practice among many auction houses to identify all irridescent glss from this era as 'Loetz' or 'Loetz type'.

Ultimately though, what does it matter who made it? It may turn out to be by Kralik or another maker, but it is still the same item. In your position, I would base my decision to buy or not on the quality and aesthetic appeal of the item regardless of maker.

Sklounion

Ultimately though, what does it matter who made it? It may turn out to be by Kralik or another maker, but it is still the same item. In your position, I would base my decision to buy or not on the quality and aesthetic appeal of the item regardless of maker.

With all due respect here, B&M, what are you saying? That it does not matter that a Powolny design, for, and made by Loetz, has no different value, if the design were made by, for example, Liuligongfang????

Cathy, welcome back, you have been missed, our queen of pressed glass, southern hemisphere chapter. Hope all's gone well with the move?

There used to be some good information on a website somewhere on identifying fake Loetz for the novice, but it appears to have disappeared.

When a website passes away r.i.p. You can often find it here http://www.archive.org/web/web.php although it is usually about a year behind the rest of the web. One presumes it takes that long to reach the cyber pearly gates.

Regarding my earlier comments, what I meant was simply that if Cathy appreciates the design of the piece and considers it pleasing enough to buy, then this perhaps is a better motivation to purchase than some tentative attribution to a possible designer or maker.

As regards Powolny and (any other named designers who may come into fashion), yes an attribution to him makes a significant difference as to what a piece might sell for but in my experience such attributions are very often made with little or no evidence. It now seems that every tango piece that comes onto the market is a Powolny, when, in fact, they are merely influenced by his designs. Austro-Bohemian glass is one of the most difficult areas to research and many (arguably the majority of) items are sold with incorrect attributions anyway and may make unpredictable prices as a result.

It is perhaps only my personal opinion but I cannot help but feel that the prime appeal of art glass should be aesthetic rather than monetary. Of course, this is practically not the case and many regard items as an investment or buy them only for the purposes of speculation; an arguably valid approach (and one which I have adopted when dealing), but one which fuels a market in which there is a recognition of a few designers at the expense of many more. More who themselves may well have been as competent but didn't for some reason make it into the right books and television programmes to capture the popular imagination.

I would have to check auction records and dealer prices to verify this but if memory serves Chine is far from the most desirable of Loetz decors and hence would not necessarily make a great deal more than a fine example by Kralik. In this specific situation I would simply use quality as a guide, both the tangible quality of execution, i.e. how well made is the piece, how good is the irridescence, and the more intangible qualities of design to decide whether or not to buy it. This, of course, is an entirely personal approach but one which I have found to be very worthwhile.